In order to provide the best quality video possible to the widest range of viewers, it is necessary to tailor the bit rate of the video to match the download speed of the client’s connection. This is possible to do with Windows Media Server, Real Producer and Quicktime.

The most difficult task of streaming audio and video over a network is maintaining a continuous presentation to the user in a highly changeable environment. Buffering is the biggest problem of streaming digital media. It is caused when the client runs out of data in memory, called the buffer, and must wait for more to arrive. The client will always run out of data if the bit rate of the incoming stream exceeds the current available bandwidth.

Unpredictability of bandwidth is taken for granted on the Internet. For example, just because a user connects to an ISP at 56 Kbps does not mean there is 56 Kbps of bandwidth available to the user at all times. The actual bandwidth at any given point is determined by network conditions and traffic on the Internet, which is constantly fluctuating, causing bandwidth to drop to 18 Kbps one moment, and then increase to 40 Kbps the next. If a user attempts to view video being streamed at 50 Kbps, the presentation suffers considerably when bandwidth is squeezed.  Read more... (1743 words, 1 image, estimated 6:58 mins reading time)